Army: 3 missing soldiers likely dead

Tracy WilkinsonSpecial to the Tribune

For more than a year, the fate of three Israeli soldiers seized by Hezbollah guerrillas on the border with Lebanon has been a mystery. The Islamic movement demanded the release of 19 prisoners in exchange for the men but refused to say whether the soldiers were dead or alive.

The Israeli army now thinks it knows what happened. On Monday, armed with what a senior official called reliable and secret new intelligence, the army announced that the soldiers probably are dead and have been since they were ambushed.

"The probability that they are dead is very high," Maj. Gen. Gil Regev said at a news conference in Tel Aviv. "Until today, we assumed they were alive, and now we assume they are dead."

Coming in the early days of the 13-month Palestinian uprising, the case of the three soldiers heightened tensions at a dangerous time. Violence was spinning out of control in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and suddenly Israel felt threatened on its northern border as well.

Months earlier, Israel had ended its two-decade occupation of southern Lebanon, a long-awaited withdrawal certified by the United Nations. But Hezbollah, with backing from Lebanon and Syria, continued to dispute a small portion of land near Shabaa Farms that Israel had captured from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war.

Eventually the soldiers' case strained Israel's relations with the United Nations, which had withheld evidence about the attack and later admitted it.

Sgt. Maj. Omar Souad, Sgt. Benjamin Avraham and Sgt. Adi Avitan were ambushed by Hezbollah on Oct. 7, 2000. According to reports at the time, the guerrillas fired Katyusha rockets at an Israeli outpost in the disputed border area. When Israeli troops arrived at the scene, guerrillas fired on them and snatched the three soldiers.

Blood at the site suggested that the men at least had been seriously wounded. Hezbollah consistently refused to disclose their conditions unless Israel would meet its demands: the release of 19 Lebanese prisoners.

Regev said the army now believes the injuries were fatal and the three soldiers died immediately or soon thereafter. The army's chief rabbi, after consulting with other leading rabbis, will decide whether to declare them dead. It is a highly unusual and sensitive matter in Israel to declare an MIA dead without finding a body.

Regev refused to reveal the nature of the new intelligence. He denied reports that Israeli authorities received body parts. Germany has interceded between Israel and Hezbollah on the soldiers' fates and may have relayed the new information.